


Help from Friends

by langsdelijn



Category: Formula 1 RPF
Genre: Alcohol, Conversations in Bars, Gen, M/M, Red Bull Fuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-22
Updated: 2016-07-22
Packaged: 2018-07-25 23:01:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7550590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/langsdelijn/pseuds/langsdelijn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan gives Dany some advice. Sort of. Obliquely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Help from Friends

It was a race weekend again. Or, at least, it was a race-weekend adjacent weekday, because it wasn’t quite the weekend yet. The difference was immaterial and largely semantic, of course, but pondering the specifics of what to call today and days like it was a welcome distraction from the fact that it was racing time once again and what that meant. Yeah, racing time, that worked. As far as neologisms went, this one was a bit awkward and ungainly but it served its purpose. Dany wasn’t hoping to get it into the dictionary or anything.

Anyway, for obvious reasons the periods previously defined had lost a lot of their shine and luster and delight, and so on, for him of late. Especially the downtimes like now. At least in the car there was the actual racing to take his mind off what car he was driving. And having Carlos around helped, generally, but Carlos wasn’t here. Dany was fairly certain he’d chased him off with his moodiness, though if so he hadn’t meant to.

It was just as well, though, sort of. Because Dany was actually entirely certain that Carlos had wanted him to go out with him, and that presented a snare of complications even beyond the fact that Dany, in fact, did not want to be taken out. He supposed he could’ve asked Carlos to stay here with him instead, and probably he would have, but then there still would have been the same general problem as always. He would still rather have Carlos, but, well. A little late for that now.

And besides, Carlos deserved better company than Dany and his alternating sullen morose misery and embarrassed halfhearted detachment. 

‘Howdy,’ Dan said, interrupting his private self-pity party, because of course he did. Dan was the kind of person who did that, start a conversation by saying “howdy” to dejected twenty-two-year-olds. It was a character trait Dany thought he might never understand, and not just because he saw no reasonable situation (barring some PR exercise, which when it came down to it wasn’t all that reasonable anyway even if he did have a future wherein he was to feature in any further such things, so) where he would ever actually utter the word “howdy”.

Dany looked up at him and, sure enough, the damn smiling bastard was wearing what would on any other person be a worryingly intense grin of an alarming width besides but was on him merely an ordinary encouraging smile. ‘Hi,’ Dany muttered miserably, hurriedly looking back down to his drink, which on the whole represented his current state of mind far better. He half wished Dan would leave, because he didn’t want any cheering up or to be checked in on or whatever this was specifically, but he didn’t want to be rude and say so.

Dan sighed. Dany hoped it wasn’t at the state and/or sight of him but suspected, bitterly, that it was even-odds-at-best not that. He hated this, hated how all-consuming this sense of inadequacy was—that he was not good enough, not _young_ enough even though he was only twenty-goddamn-two and the very notion should be laughable, not personable enough in front of the cameras, not relatable enough in general, and all in all not marketable enough to bother with (and with not much in the way of personal sponsors either—because what else had all those giant Red Bull logos all over always been for—to make him an interesting prospect elsewhere on the grid). And he hated how obvious it apparently was. To Carlos. To Dan. To the team. To the media. In fact, to everyone, even randos on the internet whose comments he should know better than to read.

‘Dany,’ Dan said in a tone that suggested a level of are-you-even-listening-to-me beyond the general aggravating patented Daniel Ricciardo cheeriness, so on autopilot Dany made a noise to the effect that yes he was, please continue even though he was perfectly alright wallowing in his own misery and there was no need for that, thanks, ‘how are you doing, mate?’

Well. His career was fucked and he knew it, because Red Bull was done with him and he with them, not that that mattered if they wanted to use him as a stopgap measure some more, and even if his luck ever changed and he got a chance to impress there was likely nowhere for him to go anyway. It also wasn’t exactly doing wonders for his mood that the official reasoning for the incident was that it had been for his own good, because that was just added insult to the injury of having been traded in for a newer model as a birthday present. So nothing new there, then; all of that made up the inescapable undercurrent of misery and resentment he had been mired in since it happened.

And then there was the thing with Carlos, but Dan didn’t need to know about that. In fact, no one did, least of all Carlos.

Dany shrugged, which was all Dan should’ve realistically expected from that question anyway.

‘Hmm,’ Dan mused in an excessively dramatic tone. Dany could imagine the no doubt attendant deep-in-thought pose, with Dan tapping his chin thoughtfully and everything, and realized he was smiling despite himself. ‘Well, mate, that sounds serious. How can I help?’

Dany shrugged again. As far as he could tell, Dan was not equipped to solve any of his problems so he could do whatever, honestly. Nice of him, though. Thoughtful. Useless, too, but as they said, it was the thought that counted.

‘Would it be at all useful,’ Dan continued after a moment’s pause in which he’d probably been waiting in vain for Dany to actually communicate in words, ‘if I slagged him off a bit for you? Say, tell you that he’s an insufferable arrogant so and so?’

‘Oh, no,’ Dany pointed out, ‘it’s called “confidence” if they _like_ you.’ Fuck. He hadn’t meant to sound so bitter. And it wasn’t… of course he knew there was a difference between arrogance and confidence beyond whether the judgement-renders liked you or not, and also that a non-zero number of people did actually think the kid was arrogant—in fact he himself was even officially agnostic on the topic due to insufficient data (not to mention for lack of interest in it). But there did seem to be an observable difference at times. Perhaps he was overanalyzing things, but he did wonder.

Dan reached into view, startling Dany out of his scattered thoughts. ‘Mate, you are in a bad way,’ Dan pronounced as he plucked Dany’s half-full glass from the table and sniffed it. He pulled a face upon finding it plain, unassuming sparkling water. ‘You need something stronger.’

‘No thanks,’ Dany said, though there was no point and he would be supplied with alcohol one way or another. 

‘Nonsense. Other offer stands, by the way.’ This he said while motioning over one of the wait staff to place his order for, presumably, something alcoholic with added alcohol. ‘Hey?’

Dan, Dany thought, wanted him to say yes. And maybe it would be cathartic, who knew. But… ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘And to be honest, so far it sounds like you’re rubbish at it.’

Dan actually huffed. 

‘I mean, there weren’t even any insults.’

‘It was a sample, you know, to see if you were interested. I’ve got better.’ Dan seemed to mean it, too, which was the weird part. As if his trash-talk pride was hurt by Dany’s suggestion his offering was… insufficiently insulting or something. Even though Dany was pretty sure that wasn’t a thing for him. ‘I mean, if you want to.’

‘I respectfully decline.’

‘Your loss,’ Dan said playfully. He then turned his full my-poor-friend-here charms on the poor waiter sent to their table, who (by his faithful nodding at this tale of woe) neither knew nor cared who either of them were, and who dutifully returned in record time with a truly massive cocktail with a veritable laundry list worth of description, not a word of which Dany actually listened to. 

But Dan was obviously very proud of himself for being such a good friend, so Dany obediently drank. It was, in fairness, quite good—fruity and sugary, yes, but in a way that complemented the sharp tang of alcohol—and, yeah, alright, he wasn’t an expert when it came to these things, so what? He wasn’t even a regular drinker most of the time. ‘It’s good,’ Dany said, because he figured he was supposed to. 

Dan beamed. ‘Solves all problems,’ he proclaimed, taking a long draught of his beer. ‘Well,’ he amended, with what was very carefully not a pitying look— _goddamn it_ , Dany thought angrily, because he was not actually made of glass, alright, so could everyone just stop treating him like he was, _fuck—_ in his direction, ‘helps us forget them, at least. Close enough!’ 

‘Sure,’ Dany agreed, half-heartedly toasting him, since he had to admit that enjoying-slash-occasionally-suffering Dan’s company was preferable to being back to sitting here alone and miserable and he didn’t want to inadvertently chase away another friend. 

‘It’s inconsiderate,’ Dany muttered halfway into his drink, having succeeded in no way in his ongoing mission not to expend any unnecessary time thinking about Max Verstappen.

Dan, two beers further in than the last time he’d said anything, frowned. ‘What is, mate?’

‘Max,’ he explained. ‘Least he could do after all this’—he did the hand-thing for _all this_ and felt instantly ridiculous for it—‘would be to actually be an insufferable brat.’ 

Dan looked thoughtful. It was vaguely hilarious to Dany, though that was probably just the first effects of the alcohol. ‘We could pretend?’ he suggested, like this was an original thought.

‘I already know he’s not,’ Dany said, which was why that would never work. Even Carlos claimed to like him as a person, and that was _after_ their rivalry had brought the team to the brink of civil war. ‘And that’s _why_ he’s inconsiderate.’

No reply. In fairness, there wasn’t really anything Dan could say to that, probably, because in terms of logic none of what he’d said held up (probably). But Dan did toast his empty bottle on Dany’s glass which felt sort of like he was being patted on the head for being cute without any of the condescension actually happening. 

‘To Max,’ Dan said eventually, raising the bottle after he had tried to drink from it. He didn’t seem bothered that Dany failed to respond.

It was only after drink number three, incidentally more of the same cocktail (still didn’t know the name), had been ordered that Dany said something he should not have said. ‘I don’t know what to do,’ he’d said, was not the thing-he-should-not-have-said itself but was the thing that led to him saying it.

And Dan, being that he was a good friend, had assumed this was about something rational like saving his career, and had thus asked ordinary, sensible follow-up questions. ‘It’s Carlos,’ said Dany, through a combination of drink-induced honesty and plain inexcusably idiocy; then, through an even more unforgivable need to finally put the whole thing to words, added, ‘I think I keep on being a jerk to him.’

‘You are?’

‘Yep,’ Dany said confidently.

‘Mate,’ said Dan, entirely too reasonably. ‘I’m sure he understands, you guys have been friends since you were, like, twelve years old.’

‘He doesn’t.’ Dany was inwardly kicking himself for saying so. He should’ve just agreed in the first place. But apparently some part of him was determined to dig this hole deeper. ‘It’s not that. I know he would.’

‘Well…’ Dan asked reasonably—he was confused, which would have been funny if not for, well, Dany’s seeming sudden inevitable need to actually literally confess to the problem at the heart of this. ‘Um, then what’s the problem?’

‘I didn’t think it’d be this hard.’ Well, awesome. Now he was a paraphrased Coldplay lyric. ‘Being teammates with him again,’ he added. Who could not _fucking_ stop talking.

‘What’re you…’ Dan stopped, took a long look at him and took a long, deliberate drink. ‘Are you saying…?’

Good one there, he congratulated himself. Awarded a gold star for failing entirely to avoid the issue and obliquely admit to everything. Well done.

‘Do you…,’ Dan was continuing, for some reason, losing him some of the friendship points he’d been gaining throughout the night, ‘like, _like_ Carlos?’

Fuck. He would take a thousand dressing-downs from Sebastian Vettel instead of this. A million. Infinity. ‘Yes,’ Dany mumbled, and why not, now. Cat was out of the bag. He’d let it. Led it, really. Hah, English was funny. ‘I do.’ 

‘Dany,’ Dan said, in a way usually reserved for his various intonations of the word “mate” and the like. It meant he was about to be earnest and serious, capital letters optional, but this time possibly even more so because he’d used his actual name. (Dan was the worst good-older-friend in the world, surely. A quote-proper-unquote friend would have packed him off to bed by now, not given him more rope to hang himself with. He hoped.) ‘You should—’

‘It was fine before,’ Dany interrupted, and _for fuck’s sake_ , was this cocktail secretly a truth serum?

Dan looked at him curiously. He had, in as far as he hadn’t before, done it now. ‘How long?’

‘I don’t know,’ Dany tried, too busy kicking himself to try to save some face. ‘Always, pretty much. But it’s worse now. It’s like… what’s the point in pretending anymore?’ this last he failed to properly give any actual question intonation at all, though apparently Dan failed to notice. 

Also, _fuck_. He could not be this desperate. Could he?

‘Dany,’ Dan said again, this time in an infuriatingly gloves-on tone that probably meant he was suspected of being glass again (it was too a thing, fuck off, okay), ‘if I know Carlos….’

Obviously, he should have told Dan to shove off the moment he showed up. Or at the latest when Dan had stolen his drink and then proceeded to try to get him drunk. ‘I know,’ Dany said glumly. He should talk to Carlos. Yeah. Just as soon as he figured out how to phrase “I might kind of have been in love with you for the entire time that I’ve known you, hope you understand and by the way, sorry for the past few months, yeah?” in a way that wouldn’t’ve made him wish the ground would swallow him up. Yep. ‘I know, talk to him.’

Actually, it’d be grand if the ground were to do so this very moment. It did not, since that was not how the world worked. Instead, Dan launched into a monologue of how modern and understanding Carlos would no doubt be, which Dany could not actually disagree with without… well, accusing him of something he wasn’t. ‘I know,’ Dany said again. ‘Can we _please_ not talk about this?’

‘If you promise,’ Dan said, smiling widely even for him, ‘to talk to him.’

Anything. Anything at all. ‘Yeah. I will.’ Not like Dan would ask Carlos, anyway. And contrary to what was apparently the common perception of him, Dany actually could lie. He wasn’t some robot. ‘I promise.’

Dan leant in. ‘And, I mean,’ he whispered, ‘not like you two would be the first to want to be, like… _close_.’ Phrasing, Dany thought, though he was under no impression that that had been unintentional. He definitely was not, though, imagining himself being “close” to Carlos.

He wasn’t.

‘ _Please._ ’

Dan’s smile was, frankly, terrifying. If those were the depths of his—whatever—, Dany was glad to be out of the way, and god help Max in going up against him. ‘I have faith in you,’ Dan said, which failed to be any less worrying in a general sense. Dan escorted him to his room, too, which was likewise an exercise in breathlessly waiting for the other shoe to drop—what if, a paranoid thought went, all of this had been set up by Carlos, _and he knew_ —but the room was blessedly empty and he was left blessedly alone in it and, frankly, there was surely no way for this day to get worse.

Dany checked his phone to be sure. Carlos had been trying to convince him to join him at _Unpronounceable Lounge_ , which was to be expected, but had given up about an hour ago, finally. Dany stared down the blinking cursor as if it was Dan holding him to his promise and this could make it back down.

The cursor won, though, since it was a cursor and had no actual mind of its own. _We should talk,_ Dany typed, then sent before he could come to his senses and forget about the whole promise like a normal person who promised things with no intention to uphold them.

 _Ok?_ Carlos responded immediately, suggesting he was not out having as much fun as Dany had been hoping.

 _It’s about…_ Dany sent, stupidly, like ellipses were useful in text messaging. _Look, just come to my room, alright_ , he added.

_?_

_Give me a minute!_ he said. Apparently Carlos was watching his phone like a hawk for updates. Dany sighed. He texted his room number and tried not to dread the future as much as he felt he should.

 _OK_ , Carlos said. _Be there soon_.

Wonderful, he thought. Carlos was coming to his room, and they would talk this out, and according to the rules of fairy tales things would be alright. _Great, see you soon_.


End file.
